New community collaboration food drive in Sudbury

Officials at the foodbank in Greater Sudbury have had to change their plans since a postal disruption means they can’t proceed with their fundraising mailout.

The Sudbury Food Bank says the need to help people with basic nutrition is soaring.

Every fall, the food bank does a fundraising mailout. But in light of postal disruptions, that is on hold. So it has launched a new fundraising and food drive throughout Greater Sudbury.

Its warehouse is a distribution point for food that goes out to local food banks, meal and specialty programs throughout the city.

“We are getting requests somewhere in the neighbourhood of 16,000 requests a month for service,” said Dan Xilon, Sudbury Food Bank executive director.

“It’s just incredible the amount of food and funds that are required out there by these individuals in order to meet the needs in their communities.”

In place of the mailout, it has launched a community collaboration food drive at local grocery stores and other locations.

“It turned out that almost every food bank has a local grocery store that is willing to help out, so most of our locations for this event will be at grocery stores in that community where that particular food bank operates,” said Jeff Xilon, Sudbury Food Bank food coordinator.

Xilon said the food bank is still hoping to do a mailout in the coming weeks but the drive comes at a time when it’s desperately needed.

“In the fall, we are raising a lot of money that buys our milk, our meat, our bread, things like that that we can buy in bulk,” he said.

This Saturday, the Community Collaboration Food Drive will be at the Your Independent Grocer in Lively and Nov. 7 at the Foodland in Garson.

Other locations are listed on the Sudbury Food Bank Facebook page.